Congressional candidate Barry Welsh has found an interesting way to explain the importance of equal marriage rights for all Americans. He’s spent a great deal of his life as the pastor of a church, and so he tends to look at things from a religious perspective.

That doesn’t mean, however, that Welsh is interested in shoving his ideas down other people’s throats. Instead, he wants churches, and the people who attend those churches, to have the freedom to express choose a form of family life that fits their religious beliefs. That freedom must apply not just for that narrow segment of the population that insists upon rigid adherence to one particular family structure.

Here’s how Welsh puts it:

“A Church has the right to choose whom they allow, or do not allow, to enter into marriage. This is an example of the separation of Church and State. A Church should not be forced to perform any marriage that goes against that church’s doctrine.

However, the act of uniting in a marriage also carries with it societal benefits including spousal rights. When people are denied those rights, that is discrimination. That discrimination exists now, and quite simply it is wrong.

A Church should keep the act of marriage within the church and in those conditions, continue to decide who should be united in marriage and who should not, but when the government performs civil unions for any consenting adults while denying other consenting adults, it is discrimination and it must end.

I believe citizens of this country should be able to live without fear of discrimination in the workplace, in the government, or in their own private lives.”

Barry Welsh is running for Congress in Indiana’s 6th congressional district, which includes the city of Muncie. His opponent is incumbent Mike Pence. Please consider giving the Welsh for Congress campaign your support.